John Ives, System and Network Security
While performing a recent spyware and adware analysis of campus, System and Network Security (SNS) was able to detect 973 campus computers with these types of programs installed in just one day. While we have the ability to detect nearly 400 programs and variants, the vast majority of what we discovered came from 25 different programs. The programs we found ranged from simple adware that places ads on user computers to spyware used to record user activity and send that information to third parties. Additionally, we even found several hosts with viruses used to install adware, spyware, and other malware.
At best, these programs are simply an annoyance to end users, but frequently they represent serious security threats to the infected computers, recording keystrokes and user activities. In keeping with our mission to help protect the campus and its data, SNS will begin notifying departments of systems we discover with these applications. Like some of our previous notices, these notices will be "notification only" messages and will not require the departments to respond. The notices will provide links to both adware/spyware removal programs and to some informational sites. Since the danger these programs represent can vary based upon the data stored on or accessed from that computer, departments will be expected to evaluate the danger the individual programs represent on a case-by-case basis.
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